<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'<{title}>' => 'Minequest, Reimagined',
	'takedown' => '2017-11-01',
	'<{body}>' => <<<END
<section id="driving">
	<h2>Driving</h2>
	<p>
		My new driving instructor ended up postponing the discussion of scheduling until tomorrow.
		Still, it&apos;s not such a distant and vague time as when my former driving instructor kept postponing.
	</p>
	<p>
		Already too, they&apos;ve taught me more than the other did.
		They&apos;ve taught (verbally) how to start an automatic vehicle properly.
		We also discussed insurance.
		Apparently, simply having a driver license requires that you get insurance, even if you never set foot in a motor vehicle, and the minimum price for insurance is about a hundred dollars per month.
		I thought I could get a license and sit on it for at least a few years, but I guess I can&apos;t do that.
		So I&apos;ll learn to drive now while I have the permit, then just not get the license until I actually have a use for one.
		This means, of course, that I can&apos;t have a license simply for emergencies.
		It&apos;s all or nothing; and I choose nothing, as I can&apos;t afford to be paying for what I don&apos;t even use.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="IRA">
	<h2>$a[IRA] issues</h2>
	<p>
		My driving instructor brought up the Oregon Saves people, getting me thinking about that again.
		I spent about the next two hours angry with that stupid $a[IRA] company, planning my next actions.
		I&apos;ve decided I need to make it clear I&apos;m going to get a lawyer if they don&apos;t knock this nonsense off.
		Then I need to follow through and actually file a lawsuit against them if they don&apos;t do start behaving reasonably.
		I wrote them the following letter:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			Hello Oregon Saves support,
		</p>
		<p>
			IMPORTANT: IF YOU&apos;RE ABLE TO ESCALATE THIS ISSUE TO A HIGHER REPRESENTATIVE, I RECOMMEND DOING THAT.
			IF SUPPORT STOPS RESPONDING AGAIN, I&apos;M GOING TO ASSUME I NEED TO GET A LAWYER TO DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT OREGON SAVES IS STEALING FROM ME.
			LIKEWISE, IF YOU TELL ME ONE MORE TIME TO CALL YOU BY TELEPHONE EVEN THOUGH I&apos;VE TOLD YOU REPEATEDLY THAT I DON&apos;T HAVE TELEPHONE SERVICE, I&apos;M GOING TO ASSUME I NEED TO GET A LAWYER.
		</p>
		<p>
			Let&apos;s start at the beginning.
			I received a letter telling me that Oregon Saves has started syphoning money from my pay cheques.
			As I never approved this, it was against my consent.
			I don&apos;t know about you, but that sounds illegal to me.
			I tried to set up my account online as per the instructions in the letter, but your website claims my Social Security number isn&apos;t nine digits long, even though it is.
			I&apos;ve contacted the support team *repeatedly* to get support for the website, but support keeps telling me to call by telephone to get the account set up, even though I&apos;ve repeatedly said that I can&apos;t call by telephone because I have no telephone service.
			Support says I can&apos;t set up the account via email, but I&apos;m not trying to; I&apos;m trying to get support for the website over email so I can get the account set up myself through the website.
			After a bit, support always stops responding and I have to open yet another issue up via email.
			There is no law in Oregon saying everyone has to have telephone service, and by opting people into your &quot;savings&quot; account without providing support to those of us without telephones, you are *STEALING* from us.
			If you want to help me get the account set up without a telephone call, great.
			If you want to instead help me get your website working so I can get the account set up on the Web myself, that&apos;d be even better.
			However, taking money from me without providing me a way to later access that money just because I don&apos;t have telephone service is in no way acceptable.
		</p>
		<p>
			I am getting very tired of this, and I&apos;m at the point where I&apos;m about ready to get a lawyer.
			If you&apos;re not able to provide support via email, that&apos;s perfectly fine; other mediums are just as good.
			I have no access to a telephone or fax machine though.
			Likewise, software such as Skype or Flash aren&apos;t compatible with my machine, so I can&apos;t reach you via mediums that require those.
			Other than that, I&apos;m more than happy to use whatever contact medium you want me to to get support with your broken website so I can get my account set up.
			Again, to be clear, I&apos;m not looking for the opt-out form.
			I&apos;m trying to get the account set up so the money I save will actually be accessible when I retire.
		</p>
		<p>
			So, you have two options.
			Are you going to provide support for your broken website without a telephone call, as is your job to do, or do I need to get a lawyer?
		</p>
		<p>
			Thank you,<br/>
			~ Alex Yst
		</p>
	<p>
		I&apos;m not quite ready to take on a legal battle.
		I need to finish learning to drive and get my credit card account debugged first.
		(The bank representative <strong>*still*</strong> hasn&apos;t responded and I&apos;m going to need to go in in person when I get a chance.)
		Once those two things are out of the way though, I guess I need to find a lawyer.
		Ugh.
		This is going to be expensive, all because this stupid $a[IRA] company is obsessed with telephones like most companies.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="Minetest">
	<h2>Minequest, Reimagined</h2>
	<p>
		The original Minequest is a lost cause.
		It&apos;ll never be right; I&apos;ll either fail to finish it or the thing I finish will be of too low of quality to use.
		I&apos;ve come up with a new idea though, one that&apos;s much more feasible; I call it Minequest, Reimagined.
		It&apos;ll still use the <code>minequest</code> identifier as it&apos;s technical mod name though.
		Basically, the premise of this one&apos;s more simple.
		For each stat, you get an ability.
		This means that unlike in Minequest proper, you get more than eight or nine abilities.
		Minequest, Reimagined will offer a small number of default abilities to choose from; at the time of writing, two are planned.
		These abilities will relate to the drop stat in some generic way, and their compatibility with each stat will be automatically detected.
		Only one ability per stat will be allowed to be active at a given time, and one of the available-by-default abilities will be the default active ability for each stat.
		Other mods can then add other abilities to choose from.
		Players can switch abilities at will from the inventory menu, but switching away from an ability may cause data loss.
		For example, if a warp point ability is used, turning that ability off to temporarily use another ability will delete all the warp points.
		This makes it impossible to basically keep multiple abilities &quot;active&quot; for the same stat, preventing such abuse.
	</p>
	<p>
		Currently, the default ability planned for all stats is one that allows you to get extra drops when you harvest the mineral or crop associated with it.
		The probability of a single, extra drop will increase until it eventually hits one hundred percent.
		As the stat continues to rise, the probability on <strong>*another*</strong> extra drop will be earned.
		The theoretical limit will be calculated for each stat individually, and no drop will ever be allowed to exceed a full stack&apos;s worth.
		The second ability planned will only be available for some stats: those from probabilistic drops in which there are two possible drops for a given node, one is associated with a stat, the other isn&apos;t, and only one drop is possible per dig.
		This ability will allow players to increase their chance of getting the stat-affecting drop based on how much they&apos;ve already acquired.
		Again, the effect per stack mined will be calculated per-drop based on information <code>minestats</code> has relating to that stat.
	</p>
	<p>
		I guess I won&apos;t be using the warp point ability after all, as the extra drop ability and drop probability bonus seem more useful for completing the tunnel.
		The added probability should help me get more sand, foe example, which I plan to build the tunnel&apos;s borders with.
		While diamonds are too rare to make levelling up enough to get a guaranteed second drop (there&apos;s a one out of six hundred sixty-one chance added per stack mined, if I did the maths correctly), an occasional extra diamond would be very helpful.
		Other stats that are more likely to offer compatibility with the warp point ability are less important to keep on those two ability choices, but I think I&apos;d still prefer those abilities.
	</p>
</section>
<section id="drudgery">
	<h2>Drudgery</h2>
	<p>
		My discussion post for the day:
	</p>
	<blockquote>
		<p>
			One of the listed webpages comes through as blank on my end.
			None of the hotspots listed on the other two pages (two of your four links point to the same exact page) are near me, by my standards.
			&quot;Near&quot; is a word of pure opinion though.
			The closest listed hotspot to me appears to be the California Floristic Province.
			This region is located along California&apos;s Pacific coastline, in the United States, and stretches into both Oregon and Mexico a bit (BBC News, 2004).
		</p>
		<p>
			Two of the important species there are Sequoiadendron giganteum (giant sequoia) and Sequoia sempervirens (coastal redwood).
			Sequoiadendron giganteum is important because it&apos;s supposedly the world&apos;s largest living organism and the largest organism to have ever lived on the planet (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, 2018), but you shouldn&apos;t believe it&apos;s actually the largest for an instant.
			There exists a huge tree named <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_%28tree%29">Pando</a> that has any sequoia beat.
			Pando is a single Populus tremuloides (quaking aspen) that has spread out it&apos;s root system underground and grown many trunks from this one root system, to the point where this single living tree is an entire forest.
			It&apos;s all one organism though; all with the same $a[DNA] and all connected by the roots.
			Still, the Sequoiadendron giganteum is a massive tree, making it pretty impressive, and it&apos;d be sad to see this species die off.
			Sequoia sempervirens is a related spices of tree, but not as big as Sequoiadendron giganteum.
			Both of these trees are endangered.
			Gymnogyps californianus (California condor), the largest bird on the continent, also makes its home in this region and is critically endangered (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, n.d.).
			The main threat to these species seems to be humans.
			California&apos;s human population is expanding, not to mention that California&apos;s a big exporter of agricultural products (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, n.d.).
			We keep clearing the woodlands to expand the farmlands.
			Strip mining, oil extraction, pollution, road-building, fire prevention, and invasive species are all playing a part in destroying this ecosystem and killing its wildlife as well (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, n.d.).
			Humans, of course, are the most invasive species of all, and most other invasive species are made invasive only because we move them with us.
			(How do you feel knowing that you&apos;re part of an invasive species?)
		</p>
		<p>
			Interestingly, this hotspot takes up the bulk of California&apos;s land (BBC News, 2004).
			I would&apos;ve never imagined most of California to be a biodiversity hotspot, seeing as the place is a desert.
			Deserts don&apos;t strike me as being the most hospitable places for life, considering that all known life requires water to survive.
			I also learned that California is supplying half of my country&apos;s agricultural products (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, n.d.).
			Again, being a desert, I wouldn&apos;t expect that.
			Lastly, over half (more than 61%, even) of the species found in this hotspot are there and there alone (Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund, n.d.).
			So many forms of life have adapted to the special conditions found there and aren&apos;t able to spread to adjacent areas.
		</p>
		<p>
			The main things we need to do to save this area and its wildlife are the same things we need to do to save the rest of the planet.
			We need to stop growing our population.
			We need to cut down on our pollution.
			We need to stop taking more land from nature and converting it into things such as farmland and residential areas.
			We need to stop digging for fossil fuels, such as oil, as well as stop burning the fossil fuels we&apos;ve already dug up.
			Once we&apos;re finally taking these basic steps to preserve the environment in general, we can see which specific hotspots still need our attention.
			I think most ecosystems would benefit greatly from these same several actions though.
		</p>
		<div class="APA_references">
			<h3>References:</h3>
			<p>
				BBC News. (2004, October 1). California Floristic Province. Retrieved from <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3707888.stm#california"><code>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3707888.stm#california</code></a>
			</p>
			<p>
				Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. (2018). California Floristic Province | CEPF. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/california-floristic-province"><code>https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/california-floristic-province</code></a>
			</p>
			<p>
				Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. (n.d.). California Floristic Province - Species | CEPF. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/california-floristic-province/species"><code>https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/california-floristic-province/species</code></a>
			</p>
			<p>
				Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. (n.d.). California Floristic Province - Threats | CEPF. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/california-floristic-province/threats"><code>https://www.cepf.net/our-work/biodiversity-hotspots/california-floristic-province/threats</code></a>
			</p>
		</div>
	</blockquote>
</section>
<section id="mother">
	<h2>My mother doesn&apos;t listen.</h2>
	<p>
		A few days ago, several items showed up in my apartment.
		Of particular note was a record player with a $a[USB] cord attached.
		I didn&apos;t recognise it as something from my mother&apos;s place and it had a price tag on it, so I figured my mother&apos;d likely bought it for me.
		I&apos;d mentioned the other day that I&apos;d seen one in Bi-Mart; I only mentioned it because I found it hilarious.
		Why would a department store such as Bi-Mart stock record players in this day and age?
		If it were a speciality music store, I&apos;d understand.
		But is Bi-Mart actually making enough money from record players to make stocking them a profitable decision?
		She asked if I wanted one.
		Of course I replied that I didn&apos;t.
		Why would I want a record player?
		Who am I, <a href="https://marcwithac.bandcamp.com/track/retrolowfi-2">Marc With a C</a>?
		I was just going to ignore the record player until it came up, as I figured it would eventually.
		Vanessa wrote to me tonight confirming my suspicions, as I thought.
		Clearly, my mother doesn&apos;t listen.
		She never has.
	</p>
	<p>
		I kind of wonder if something similar is what happened with the creepy pedometer from before.
		I feign interest in things sometimes to try to mask my distaste for them.
		People think that if you don&apos;t like the items they enjoy, you mean it as some sort of attack on them.
		My mother is particularly guilty of this.
		So I used to act like I found her pedometer interesting, but if she&apos;d asked me if I&apos;d wanted one (which she may or may not have done before buying me one), I&apos;d&apos;ve been honest and said I didn&apos;t.
		I never pretend to want things, I only fake an interest in their use by the person that possesses them.
		I wonder if she did ask me, I told her &quot;no&quot;, and she took my &quot;no&quot; to mean &quot;yes&quot;.
		It certainly wouldn&apos;t be the first time.
		And this record player will no doubt not be the last case of this happening.
	</p>
</section>
END
);
